


Stepping Into The Same River Twice

by Davechicken



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Off Screen Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-28
Updated: 2013-11-28
Packaged: 2018-01-02 21:57:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Many years have passed. Castiel remembers, but he is not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stepping Into The Same River Twice

Every ten years he came here. Every ten years on the anniversary of their death, Castiel would come and stand by the two headstones and stare. The words were etched deeply into stone, proclaiming names and dates and a few short lines that did nothing to convey just _how_ important they had been. Saved the world several times over. Saved Heaven. Saved everything. 

At the time it had all seemed so... important. Well. It had been. A flurry of insane activity that flared up bright like the sun but died as fast as the sun did at the end of each day. Humans were so very _temporary_ , and even though they treated Death like a revolving door and broke every law of diminishing returns... one day it all just... stopped.

And Castiel didn't really know how to deal with that.

He'd been around death before, of course he had. He'd been there when Adam and Eve died. Before that, even, when Cain slaughtered Abel. He'd seen the first death and if he was careful he'd see the last. But even his brief stint as a mortal himself had not prepared him for the knowledge that - some day - Sam and Dean Winchester would die. Had died. Were dead.

Dead and buried and cold in the earth below his feet. All that was left now were ashes, because they'd wanted to make sure nothing brought them back and Castiel had made sure their last wishes were respected. 

He'd offered to bring them back, but they had - in the end - said no.

Time was up for them.

Time.

He remembered the manic days of rebellions and Leviathans and deals and trips into Hell and the Cage... things had moved differently back then. With that sense of urgency that he now realised was the human, mortal push. He'd allowed himself to be swept along in their wake, and those few years had been so much more full than all the thousands that had come before.

And now they were gone... Cas felt empty and alone.

He was aware of the presence of the other - one moment not and the next _there_ \- but he knew enough that he recognised he would be safe. 

"Funny, isn't it. They're a pain in the ass for years and you wish they were dead because of all the hassle - hell, you do your best to kill them - and then when they're gone... it's like the world isn't the same."

"I did not try to kill them."

"No, you're right. That was just me. But you know what I meant, Cas."

He did know what he meant. He continued to stare down at the dull, silent stone on the dull, silent earth. It was natural. It was the order of things. It was... right.

It hurt, still. It would always hurt.

"Can't you go see them up in the great marshmallow cloud in the sky?"

"Yes."

"Do you?"

"...no."

"Why not?"

Cas glanced to the demon stood beside him. It had become something of a tradition for them to meet here. The first time Crowley had vanished as soon as Cas noticed him, which made the angel doubt his sanity. He wasn't sure why the King of Hell would want to pay his respects to dead hunters. The second time, Crowley had been there when Cas arrived and they'd stood in awkward silence for a few minutes before - each avoiding the other's eyes until the very last - they went their separate ways.

One year Cas had spoken, and Crowley had replied.

"I want to remember them alive. How we knew them. Not dead."

"That's not the only reason, is it?"

Cas' tongue stole out over his lips. "They should rest in peace, Crowley, they did their fighting. If they were to see me it would remind them of all the horrors of their lives and it would disturb them."

"You don't think they'd be happy to see you?"

"They would. But it would be wrong of me. So I... watch them, some times. Like I used to watch them on Earth."

Crowley accepted that explanation.

"Sure were worthy opponents - even for the King of Hell."

Cas smiled. "And Lucifer. And Azazel. And Lillith. And Abaddon. And God."

"God? He was hardly one of the enemies of the week, Cas."

"No... but his legacy was, all the same."

"There was a time you'd never have said that for fear of being reduced to a pillar of salt, you know. I remember the old Castiel. By the book. Never a feather out of place..."

"Yes. I was like that, wasn't I?"

"I like the new Cas better."

Cas turned. He didn't want to be staring at the graves any longer. Maybe he should just go, and meet the demon here in another ten years?

But Crowley moved to stand beside him.

"Fancy a walk and a chat... for old time's sake?"

Cas couldn't keep the smile from his lips. "For old time's sake."

They walked from the grounds towards the river. It was a chill winter's morning, and there was still traces of frost on the blades of stubborn grass. If they breathed, then there would be fog before their lips, giving the warmth back to the universe on its slow, torturous journey towards inevitable heat death. Slow like angels thought. Slow like the galaxies spun. A ceaseless dance towards the end, where the only thing that would pervade the universe would be cold and silence.

As they walked past the water, Cas listened to the soft sounds of change eroding the rock below. In a few years' time he knew the path would be different, like the children that came after and did things two steps to the right, inching their way into a different but almost-parallel existence. Children the Winchesters had never had.

Probably for the best. For the children, that was.

As they walked they talked about past times with the air of old battle veterans, re-enacting glory days with salt shakers and spoons on the creased tablecloth at Christmas to any and all who couldn't escape. They laughed about occasions where they'd nearly died - or in Cas' case, actually died - like they were family holidays instead of apocalypse or Hell on Earth. 

Cas didn't have anyone else to talk to about this. No one left alive but Crowley understood. No one else alive had lived through what he had lived through. He'd always been different from the other angels - he'd known that from the start - but it hadn't been until he'd met Dean Winchester that he'd realised the extent of his difference.

Hadn't been until... until he rebelled.

And then - even having done it for what he thought at the time were always the best of motives - then he'd been more like Lucifer than he'd cared to admit. And who understood _that_ better than the King of Hell?

"I am surprised that you miss them, Crowley. I would have thought that their interference with your plots and plans would make you happy they had died."

"Yeah, well. So did I. But it turns out it's... not as interesting without someone to bounce off of, you know? I mean... don't get me wrong. I _like_ the status as quo as it is now, I _like_ not having to worry about usurpers to my throne, or imminent 'cures' or whatever the hell else the universe wants to throw at me but..." The demon's amber eyes glittered with a hunger he'd long since missed, "...you have to admit it was _fun_."

Fun. Running around questioning his faith, his whole existence, his reason for being. Fun. Facing down the oldest angel. Being brutally exploded. Fun. Making deals with demons. Becoming God. Exploding again... Having his very Grace ripped from his being, turned into one of those mortals he loved so very much and realising that perhaps angels had an easier life than Lucifer had ever understood... Fun.

"Yes. Yes it was."

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, Cas thought, as they came across a bench. 

The demon sat down, pulling his jacket below him fastidiously. He had the power to sort any crease out with a blink and a thought, but still he clung to his old... _human_ ways of dealing with the world. Crowley was unlike most of his kind. He still seemed to remember what it was like to breathe and fear death. He still seemed to remember what he had been before.

He still seemed to remember other things, too, like the honour amongst thieves or the idea of _quid pro quo_.

He was as strange to his people as Castiel was to his own.

Cas sat beside him.

"Do you think it will happen again?" Cas asked.

"Probably. There are other people out there destined to great things. Someone else will try to kill me. Whether or not you'll fall in love with them is something else entirely."

"I did not 'fall in love' with them." Cas' cheeks were hot with indignation.

"You did. Even if not in the 'let's settle down and produce mewling babies and white picket fences and pay our taxes' way. You fell in love with them both, and that's why it hurts so much that you lost them."

"It's not like that."

"It's precisely like that, Cas. Don't be a moron. I thought you angels were supposed to be all about the lovey-dovey stuff? Oh, right. Forgot. You're actually supposed to be mindless automata who do nothing but bleat God's name in ecstasy and follow any order given to you."

"Crowley!"

"Oh, come off it, kitten. You know it's true. You know most of your brothers and sisters wouldn't know love if it kicked them in the face. They're all bureaucrats with flaming swords and hardons for anything written down in a bloody instruction manual."

"That... that's not true... they... they..."

It was true, he realised. Beings of infinite compassion and grace and beauty his siblings were not. Examples of God's kindness and everlasting love they were not. Instead they were soldiers, warriors. Left to guard the gates and do the essential work of justice. Left to punish transgressors with fire and the sword. Even Lucifer had been an angel. Even Hell had been under angelic sway. There was no goodness to be found in most of his brothers and sisters; the years and their work and their distance from their father had warped them to almost mirror the demons down in Hell.

Crowley waited for the bluster to die down in his throat unvoiced, looking at him with the patience of a teacher who knew the pupil was close to coming to the right conclusion on their own.

It was true.

Castiel had learned of love through the eyes of two brothers.

He turned away from that too-knowing face.

He had learned of hate from a different master, and that master had been Crowley.

"I am sorry, you know," Cas told him.

"For what, in particular? That's a rather sweeping statement to make."

"For... for betraying you. For breaking our deal. You were... you were honourable and I was not."

"Yes. You weren't." 

They sat in silence a little longer, as Castiel remembered. He'd been so... so... caught up in his own pride. His hubris. His arrogance. He'd believed the lines the demon had fed him because they had been what he'd wanted to hear. He'd believed he was special and destined for greatness, because Crowley - master of the Crossroads - had seen into that dark little part of him and tugged it to the fore.

Overhead, birds flew. Cas watched them with interest as their wings beat the air in gracious unison. He admired birds. They worked together, flying in one flock, following lines set down generations ago. They were loyal, too, many of them. The pheasant who would sacrifice himself for his mate, the swan who would mourn his. Their simple little hearts knew things even an angel had not.

Crowley had trusted him. It had started out as a deal - as a way for them to mutually benefit the other - but it had not been that entirely. Crowley had had no intention of coming up short on their terms. He'd made them in full and frank honesty. He'd offered things Castiel had wanted, and he'd expected nothing more than his fair share in return.

And Castiel had betrayed him like the Judas he was.

He remembered the look in the demon's eyes. He hadn't realised it was possible to cause something as twisted as Crowley was... such _anguish_. But he'd done it, and he'd stormed on blindly.

And Crowley had hated him.

But he'd hated him because he'd trusted him. The betrayal had stung more than the act itself. They had forgotten to be angel and demon... they had been something else.

"Why do you come here?"

"Why do you, Cas?"

"I mean... why do you come when you know I am here?"

He thought he knew the answer, but he wanted to see for sure. The demon's eyes were tight with pain of their own, and Cas knew he'd understood correctly.

"I am sorry," Cas said again.

Crowley put his hand on Cas'.

They sat and watched the world go by.

***


End file.
